APPARATUS OF THE ELEPHANT. 415 



Messrs. Cooper & Bailey, for placing the specimen at my disposal, and for afford- 

 ing me the opportunity of showing it to the members of the Academy. As far as 

 I know, it is the only placenta in existence of an elephant delivered at full term. 

 Prof. Owen received from Dr. Martin, of Ceylon, the placenta and membranes of 

 an elephant supposed to have been born about the middle of gestation. This 

 specimen was sent from India to London in arrack, and was described by Prof. 

 Owen in 1857. It has been preserved since then in spirits, in the Poyal College 

 of Surgeons, in London, and was re-examined by Prof Turner, of Edinburgh, the 

 result of his investigation being given in his Lectures on the Comparative Anatomy 

 of the Placenta.* As Avill be seen from the following description, my specimen 

 differs from that of Prof Owen, but I think this difference is due, as might be 

 expected, to the fact that one was delivered at full term, the other at only half 

 that period. 



As is well known, in certain animals, like the pig, cow, sheep, horse, etc., the 

 chorion, or membrane which incloses the foetus, comes away in labor without 

 bringing with it any of the mucous membrane lining the uterus of the mother ; 

 hence, this kind of placenta is said to be noncaducous, nondeciduous, or noncoher- 

 ent. The placenta in these animals is also said to be diffuse, as in the pig; or 

 cotyledonary, as in the cow — according as the villous processes are diffused over 

 the outer surface of the chorion, or are limited in the form of knots, bunches, or 

 cotyledons. In man, monkeys, rats, bats, dogs, etc., during parturition, there 

 is always cast off a greater or smaller portion of the mucous membrane of the 

 mother; and the villous processes of the chorion of the foetus insinuate them- 

 selves to such an extent into the mucous membrane of the uterus that the placenta 

 in these animals consists of a fcetal and a maternal part ; whereas, in the non- 

 deciduous mammals the placenta consists simply of foetal membranes. Hence, in 

 man and the other animals last mentioned, the placenta is called coherent, or 

 deciduous, or caducous. But just as the nondeciduous placenta exhibits itself 

 under two forms, so we find the deciduous placenta either disk- shaped or zonular. 

 The first kind is seen in the placenta of man, monkeys, etc. ; the second in that of 

 the dog and carnivora generally. Under what form of placenta does that of the 

 elephant come"? Without doubt the zonular, and to a certain extent, also, the dif- 

 fuse, as Prof Owen has asserted. Is it a deciduous or .nondeciduous placenta? 

 Prof. Turner has satisfied himself, from an examination of Prof Owen's specimen, 

 that it is deciduous.-}- The examination of the injected bloodvessels^ in my speci- 



* Comp. Anat. Placenta. Edinburgh, 1876. t Op. cit., p. 101. 



X Mr. Nash was good enough to inject the specimen for me, with perfect success. Otherwise it would 

 have been difficult to distinguish the foetal and maternal parts, so interlaced were they. 



